


Quoth Icarus: "Turn down for what?"

by demon_dream



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Ciphers, Collected works, Dark, Humor, I should tag for insomnia, Morbid, More tags to be added, Mythology References, Nursery Rhyme References, Poetry, Reverse Falls AU, Sun&Moon AU, Transcendence AU, am clueless about pop culture but can ramble about navajo blanket weaving, even a drop is too much, gratuitous Latin, kiss your childhood goodbye, now with bonus gratuitous Sumerian, obscure references, pay attention in grammar class if you want to summon demons, probably more AUs if I feel like it, say no to infinite power kids, spells and incantations, triangle demon lullaby, yeah me neither
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demon_dream/pseuds/demon_dream
Summary: Things of great beauty are frequently compared to poetry. Here, that beauty has been beaten half to death with a crowbar and covered in glitter glue. Squint into the ruins of the burst pomegranate skull and you might find some binary code, some cheap thrills, or a gold tooth. Also a lot of triangles, but that's perfectly normal.





	1. Hey, I Just Met You

I understand.  
The world is flat,  
And full of rulers  
Drawing lines.  
You're an artist stumbling forward,  
Fingerpainting in the dark,  
But there's something just beyond  
That you can taste.  
Full disclosure, honestly  
It's low-hanging fruit,  
But I'm sure I've got a ladder somewhere!  
I see your situation,  
See your problems,  
See solutions,  
And with some improvisation  
I'm sure you could execute them.  
I'll feed you (fatten you)  
Facts and phenomena  
All it requires  
Is a bit of mental stamina.  
In full confidence and sincerity,  
In my immortal clarity,  
I daresay you're the only one  
Who's worthy of my time.  
Intriguing and exceptional,  
(Perhaps morally flexible)  
I think we'd have a lot of fun  
Two heads together, you and I.  
Why socialize  
When you can revolutionize?  
In the pursuit of greatness  
To hesitate is to die.  
I'm sure you understand  
Why burning daylight–  
Midnight oil–  
Is the greatest mortal toil.  
Must I actually explain myself?  
You trust me,  
My belief in you.  
Shutter the windows.  
Eyes on me.  
I'll be all you think and breathe.  
You're worthy, and it's worth it.  
Take a chance,  
A leap,  
For me.  
I'll catch you (in my teeth,  
Eat you alive,  
Boil your blood.  
On my throne of human agony  
You're the diamond  
In the mud.)  
You can't do this alone, you know?  
I need your clever mind.  
A space to work,  
Your idle hands,  
A soul in kind.  
(You asked for inspiration.  
In the details devils lurk.)  
So, what will it be then?  
 _Is this all you can take._  
I'm game, and you see reason.  
Need a hand? It's right here.  
 _Shake_.


	2. One Hand Clapping

Welcome, one and all,  
To the experiment of the ages!  
Today we'll be unraveling  
A bit more than dusty pages.  
If you'll glance at diagram four  
You'll see the timeline of decay  
And slow replacement that creates  
A weedy fossil out of clay.  
Subtractive sculpture is an art,  
Connect the dots, fill in the lines  
And from the cluttered chaos  
A new asterism shines.  
Tell me something, kiddo.  
If a tree falls in a forest  
When there's nobody around,  
A stately giant crushed to kindling—  
Do you think it makes a sound?  
Does it go out with a whimper,  
(drowning kittens)  
Or a bang?  
Consume reason with desire,  
Freeze with fear or seethe with hate?  
You're too busy to have fun,  
Firing yourself into the sun,  
But when the fletching melts away  
You're left abandoned.  
Seize the day!  
Self-destruct in a cattle chute,  
Unaccustomed to light.  
I'll kiss your head.  
Come along now, little spaceman.  
It's time to go to bed.  
(Rockabye, Pine Tree  
In the treetops.  
Since it's my treat,  
I'm pulling all stops.  
When Gravity Falls  
And Earth becomes Sky,  
Enjoy the finale!  
Spoilers: you'll die.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all products of mild insanity. Safety first, only drink the Koolaid if it has plastic dinosaurs and a zero liability contract attached. Comments welcome. I adopt plot bunnies, and it's not my fault if they turn into rabid beasts capable of slaughtering armored knights.


	3. Mother Noose

Weirdmageddon is here!  
Weirdmageddon is here!  
Come one and all rejects,  
Fuck da police! Drink fear!  
(*unlimited time offer, available in one location.)

Little Dipper,  
Little Dipper,  
go to sleep.  
Go to sleep.  
Time to face the music.  
How many new bruises?  
Not a peep.  
Not a peep.

It's raining, it's pouring,  
The old fart is snoring.  
This stupid head  
Is half brain-dead,  
And quite frankly annoying.

A phone call, a phone call, I know I have rights.  
Listen here, listen here, sleep well tonight.  
A phone call, a phone call, it's not much to ask!  
Listen here, listen here, wrinkled old ass.  
A phone call, a phone call, I only need one.  
Listen here, listen here, _I am **not done—**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess which rhymes?  
> Hints:  
> TOIWC SVFHZHMM  
> YYIIR XOUUGSL  
> PJ PBI UWX FVBZ SER KFGRS MHB EIR RSSH FC FL  
> XF ZOFCIF, HH TEIXSH (LS PSOVYI JORVPQG POSCR VCY. KQH BA? KVG WH? TET, HHBKY PFCOH.)


	4. Pity Party

Listen to the static on the phone.  
Hear the silent breathing and the  
Crushing white noise.  
Tell the bedroom walls about your day.  
Bleeding ink and screaming colors  
Plotting with toys.

Unappreciated in your time.  
That's normal.  
No problem.  
Rosy glasses fade to black and white.  
Digging in.  
Hold on now.

Mystery Twins stand back to back, together.  
Now and forever.  
No time like the present to stand your ground  
Holding tears back when nobody's around.

Maybe he just needs a fellow nerd?  
Yeah, he's always been a little lonely genius.  
Haven't you always been two in one,  
Even though he goes to places you can't follow?

Scrapbook memories catch the light.  
The time slips.  
The world tips.  
Squinting at ciphers through the night.  
You're silent.  
Heart screaming.

Suffocating, and he's so frustrating,  
Summer fading.  
It's you and the ghost of his token laugh.  
It's him and his life on a cork board graph.

Turn that frown   
upside down  
Bedazzle   
the whole town  
Don't think of   
fallback plans  
Run in with   
outstretched hands  
He's laughing,   
he's lying,  
Something inside you's dying.  
You're trying.  
You're trying.  
Happy Birthday, make a wish that comes true  
Sleeping Beauty, for a prince who loves you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been listening to that song too much. It fits, and now will forever be Mabel's song. If you listen closely to this poem you can hear my heart breaking. Well, it's either that or Dipper's voice cracking spectacularly.


	5. Reversi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reverse Falls AU

Blue  
Ice in the veins  
Electric eyes  
Have you ever heard of the _apocalypse?_  
Alone on an island  
Unmoored and insensate  
Strange siren-song snares  
Laid o'er old R'lyeh.  
In sepia, monochrome,  
_semper vigilans_  
Vivacity colors a name  
With "I am".  
A manifestation of age-old design  
That mortals might dare to say borders divine  
_gnōthi sauton_  
The tragedy has begun.  
Raise the lights  
Spread your hands  
Hang the stars  
Strike the band  
Thrice and twice and yet again  
This is the song that never ends.  
A pale hand parts the veil.  
Ink stains a virgin book.  
The darkness, split asunder  
To disgorge a vaudeville hook.  
"Am I not what you asked for?"  
_si dormiam capiar_  
Things that seem and things that are  
Reduced to chords on a blue guitar.  
A modest proposal.  
A dream.  
A life.  
Nearsighted fool  
With a farsighted goal.  
There is a cruelty in kindness  
Most men have forgot,  
The right hand is guileless.  
The left hand plots.  
_nemini confisus sis_

>   
>  Child.  
>  **Child!  
>  ** **By this sign I own you, by this sign I claim  
>  The right to your freedom,  
>  Your soul, and your name.**

  
Who is the demon?  
The human?  
The damned?  
Stanford Pines, for all your glory  
Mark ye this: _Memento mori_.  
Now is the blue-out.

  
**William Cipher**

**_serviam_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sunt lacrimae rerum  
> et mentem mortalia tangunt
> 
> Stanford owns an idea given flesh. Will is a triangular puddle of tears, but I wonder. Good dreams can be dangerous opiates.
> 
> The underlined and bold parts are parts spoken during the ritual. Will may or may not be too distracted by having flesh to notice Stanford's mistake.


	6. Put Down the Damned Knife Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a whole bunch of incantations and prayers for the Transcendence AU. Abandon hope, translators. Some of these are only vaguely related to real languages. A little Greek, a bit of Latin, some Sumerian, probably some Old English, heavily abused Spanish and excessively obscure references. Consider yourself warned, this would make any actual scholars cry.  
> Disclaimer: the author is not responsible for what happens to anyone who incants these on unholy ground over freshly spilled blood.  
> 

Alleged Formal Rite of the Dreambender, origin unknown, as attested by the ruins of an abandoned cult complex:

Tō niht, celebraturi til anpao.  
Minus solliciti, ventus habitu induendum.  
Qui imprecor in stella, stella, stella.  
Facimus! Facimus!  
Procedo et salutaret nostrum dominus, dominus, dominus.  
Ave! Ave!  
Ita ambulant, ambulate, ambulate per ordinem cetera.  
Non, non, ne obliviscaris nos, parens patriae.  
Diskō gör,  
cuman thurh,  
dat gör est ēow.  
Meri miit, Nachtmære Rex, Excelsissimus, Terribilis.  
Meri miit, Somniflecte, Dioskouroi Stella, Noster Stella.  
Sas kaloúme: Alcor!  
Zamizu duggaam,  
ni gal an ki-a dullame-en.

 

Excerpt from a Transcendence-era blog, featuring a personal prayer written in an obscure language isolate:

Ol Zu'u praal tum hahnu  
Zu'u draal faal Magna-Ge fen dein zii-i  
Rul zu'u dir us vu,  
Zu'u ov sili wah Ok aaz.

 

Amateur handwritten work from the Glendale Grimoires, purpose unknown, possibly religious poetry. Dated to the rising of the Circle of the Dreamers' Star:

Glittering, gleaming Dreamers' Star  
I wonder at your light.  
Your omnipresent Eye sees all,  
Enthroned in the vale of night.  
Glittering, gleaming Dreamers' Star  
I wonder at your light.

When your blazing rage is done  
and cool Longnight has begun,  
In your heart you set a place.  
Enfold us in your kind embrace.  
Glittering, gleaming Dreamers' Star  
For your light I am in awe.

 

Incantation of a style made popular on votive lamps frequently unearthed in personal bedrooms, particularly those of children:

Luz aster, aster beor,  
Prima stel ii veo noctem.  
Kero mæg  
Kero et bitte  
O'ten te ker kero et nox.

 

Similar incantation, atypically carved into the foundations of a lighthouse in the Isles of California:

Albedo, Bolometri Magni,  
Prima Noctem, Chicxulub Calafia.  
Tecumseh,  
Behenii,  
Belet-ili Tioumoutiri et Sharrum Ouaiti.

 

Recorded monologue from an Alcorian mystery play or rite commemorating the sundering of California:

 ** _Lo!_** The smoke rises. Storm-drums thunder in the deep, and blood seeps across the dome of the sky. It is April Twenty-Ninth, and the bones of the earth begin to scream.  
**_Fire!_** Shedding gold like a dying phoenix, death rains over the land. Choking, blazing, the people of the Gold Coast drown in the blood of Midas and the biblical fury of primordial rage, a divine funeral pyre.  
**_Cracks!_** He tears out the mountains by their roots and hurls them away without a glance into the churning wine-dark sea. He crushes cities underfoot with the crunch of dry leaves, the toothed maw of the earth prised open to screech wordlessly at the tattered sky.  
**_Howl!_** The Forgotten One screeches and the rivers flee their beds in terror, lakes startled to boiling and the sea surging with fright. Frogs rain over the wreckage, flesh and blood plummet from the sky to rot like spiked heads on the crumpled gates of Hell. Witchlight flickers in the craters, a bitter wormwood glow, seething with chains of curses known to us as the Mists of Madness.  
**_Claws!_** They rend the sky and tatter the veil of night, snag the frayed edges of the world and rip loose with the force of death incarnate. The Dreambender warps reality with a breath, unrestrained, the terror of the devouring void limned with a searing glory. The dust settles, the sky falls and the earth crumbles apart. Bloody and drenched in the aftermath, the world quivers, and the stray dregs of his wrath linger to haunt the shattered bones of California.  
**_It is done,_** and the sirens sleep for the day the Dreamer wracks the earth with nightmares once again.

 

 

_ Authorized for publication in approved demonology textbooks by the Department of Esoteric Education. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fun with these, folks. I take requests if any other authors want excessively researched pseudo-spells that look like they could wake the Dreamer. If you want me to walk through rough translations, that is a thing that can happen. It's more fun if you try to puzzle it out though. Be the bedraggled, dusty-haired archaeologist I know you can be.


	7. Ch'ihónít'i

A lot goes into a sweater.  
Creation is a kind of magic,  
and for good reason do we call  
the elegant expression of skill  
an art.  
The fates weave.  
The warp of space and the weft of time  
Locked firmly together  
By the encouraging shuttle-comb  
Of happenstance masquerading as destiny.  
That's the big picture,  
too big,  
a loomhouse the size of reality  
Where stardust leads are spun on glittering bobbins  
And tufts of dark matter are carded into shape by the eternal march of entropy.  
Tap.  
Select.  
Magnify the joy of new love,  
Young hands,  
Young flesh with the sap rising in it  
Like snowdrops in April  
And the rising flush of dawn  
Gilding the pines with motes of fairy dust.  
Skeins of yarn in every jewelled tone,  
Of bleeding hearts  
And dewy mornings  
Sunny friend-yellow  
And late-night-whispery blue.  
Pink like explosions behind your eyes  
And red like teeth knocked out  
In a truly epic bike-riding fail.  
Purple pulled gently from blossoming bruises  
Planted by unkind hands,  
Green pulled from sparkling binary code  
And grass stains on well-loved shorts.  
Whole skeins of orange spill forth  
Like the ropy guts of a bonfire,  
Safety-bright and pumpkin-cheerful  
And sometimes shades of turn-on-the-nightlight.  
There are so _many_ shades of brown,  
So many gradients of gray,  
Loam and ash  
clean wriggly puppies and grunkle-hair,  
but she whips up her twin magic wands  
Her music batons  
And dual-wields them fiercely like a fabulous warrior-princess of old  
Enthroned in her kingdom of soft warmth.  
Victorious,  
Vivacious,  
With flying colors and flair  
A hurricane of textures and patterns takes shape in her grip.  
Formless need twists and stretches  
Aching swirls through yards of soft thread  
Love snags in the loops  
And smiles linger in the seams.  
In the beginning was the Word,  
And that word was "Sweater Town."  
It is _too_ a word,  
Two-in-one  
Compound  
Like sneezecough  
Or dollophead.  
Either way,  
That word was neither the beginning nor the end of anything,  
but a full-body hug as warm as young laughter  
As bright as fireworks  
And as long as a bajillion lifetimes.  
It's out there,  
it exists,  
born of enthusiastic effervescence  
and trembling fingers,  
and it won't ever _stop_ being there for you,  
Not even if stupid nerd boys get funny ideas about machismo  
And forget that the most badass thing they ever saw  
Was an old man so full of love  
That he picked up an awl  
And slip-stitched his own spirit line  
shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This.... did not quite turn out the way I intended, but it refuses to become anything else. So. Have a thing. Is someone chopping onions in my scriptorium? Because that's rude, and now my notebook is all blurry. For shame.


	8. Adrasteia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just watched the Hell to your Doorstep animatic and fell in love.  
> Sun&Moon AU: http://luminaxandra.tumblr.com/post/170740982174/ok-so-theres-no-way-the-other-options-in-the-poll  
> Bless her and her overworked wrist.

Love is  
A message  
Dripping, ragged, torn,  
Well-loved and deeply creased  
Speckled tearstains  
Words stillborn.  
You choke on your emotions  
While I sip a fine wine  
Pressed from the grapes of wrath  
And aged in a dead man's cask.  
Dawn breaks beneath my heel,  
Crushed to embers,  
Ashes  
Smoke  
The grey witchlight stifled  
By the pure embrace of night.  
Unadulterated and unleashed  
Scrub your goodbye from my cheeks  
This is payback.  
Think me setback.  
Think it till your judgement day.  
The stars will strike  
The sky will fall  
The dominion of earth will be mine,  
And none will be left  
To waste their breath  
On this traitor sister mine.  
The seasons turn,  
But the wheel will burn  
And blacken  
Dark with soot.  
Breathe with me  
in slumber deep  
The tragedy's afoot.  
(Dear brother locked in sleep sublime,  
What I wouldn't give to turn back time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough and a little ragged, with a jarcha at the end because I'm a nerd. Probably should revisit this when I'm more awake, but. The angry moon god says no. "Listen to the angry moon god" is pretty solid advice, methinks.


End file.
